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Abstract: The aim of this doctoral dissertation was to develop a general methodology for sustainable integration of company's supply networks into nearby regional networks by i) integrating renewables, thereby increasing company's energy self-sufficiency, ii) by performing multi-objective synthesis in order to obtain economically efficient and yet environmentally benign or even unburdening solutions, and iii) to perform dynamic and stochastic synthesis under uncertainties in dynamically changing market conditions in order to obtain more reliable and realistic solutions. The research work is directly interlinked with a large-scale European meat producing company Perutnina Ptuj d.d., which is located in the heart of Slovenia. The aim of the first part was to integrate renewables into companies’ supply-networks at regional level in order to maximize the self-sufficiencies of their energy supplies. This concerns companies’ activities from the use of natural resources to supplying their final products to the customers being interlinked with their regional networks. A Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model has been developed for the integration of both the companies’ and surrounding regional supply-networks and the utilization of different types of renewables as sources for the companies’ energy supplies. The potential renewable energy sources, which are located within companies surrounding region are solar, biomass, organic and animal wastes. The result indicates that by sufficient integration of renewables into companies’ supply networks, profitable and yet energy self-sufficient solutions can be obtained. The second part presents the multi-objective synthesis of a company’s supply-network by integrating renewables and accounting for several environmental footprints. A previously developed model for achieving energy self-sufficiency by integrating renewables into companies’ supply-networks has been extended for the evaluation of environmental impacts, such as energy, carbon, nitrogen, and water footprints. The achievement of an energy self-sufficient supply-network has been considered whilst significantly reducing environmental impacts. Direct (burdening) and indirect (unburdening) effects that form total effects on the environment are considered for the evaluation of environmental footprints. This approach identifies those alternative energy production technologies that are more profitable and environmentally more benign with significant unburdening capabilities. The results showed significant unburdening of the environment in terms of carbon and nitrogen footprints; however, higher burdening in terms of the water footprint. The third part presents a multi-objective MILP synthesis of a dynamic supply-network under uncertainty applied to the company. The previously-developed multi-objective model for achieving energy self-sufficiency by integrating renewables into companies’ supply-networks has now been extended to account for the dynamic consideration of variable supply and demand over the year, for uncertainties related to products’ demand and sun radiation, and for multi-objective optimisation, in order to obtain the most sustainable company’s supply-network. The sustainable synthesis of a company’s network is performed regarding the integration of the renewables such as biomass and other wastes, and solar energy. The obtained solutions are those reflecting maximal profit, reflecting constantly-changing dynamic market conditions, accounting for several uncertain parameters, and protecting the environment.
Keywords: Company's supply network, Renewables, Environmental Impacts, Dynamic synthesis, Flexibility, Multi-objective optimisation, Uncertainty
Published in DKUM: 21.07.2017; Views: 1694; Downloads: 171
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Abstract: This doctoral dissertation, which consists of four substantive wholes, presents several syntheses of sustainable bioprocesses using computer-aided process engineering. In the first part the synthesis of different integrated processes of ethanol production from the entire corn plant is presented. The synthesis of different processes is in the second part further extended to the simplified and more comprehensive synthesis of bioproducts in the whole production supply chain network. Synthesis is based on the generic optimisation model of biomass production and supply chain networks. In the third part three methods for sustainable development assessment, suitable for multi-criteria optimisation, are presented: method of sustainability indexes, footprints and combined criteria, such as eco- and total profit. Methods are further upgraded with indirect effects in order to measure the unburdening the environment, associated with the use and replacement of environmentally-harmful products. Methods include the direct, indirect and total impacts on the environment. In the last part the methodology for reducing a large number of criteria within multi-objective optimisation to a small number of representative criteria is presented. This method is presented on the case of environmental footprints.
Keywords: Biomass energy generation, Supply chain networks, Synthesis of sustainable bioprocesses, Life Cycle Analysis, Sustainability assessment, Multi-objective optimisation, Dimensionality reduction, Representative Objectives Method
Published in DKUM: 06.05.2013; Views: 2598; Downloads: 284
Full text (4,29 MB)